Opportunity ripe for a charter do-over

Education policy has evolved over the years in Michigan to mimic the old Chinese proverb: “When you open the window, all the flies can come in.”

The flies have been swarming Michigan’s charter school market.

We need a better screen that allows quality schools in and keeps the lousy ones out, be they traditional or charter. We need to support quality learning, regardless from where it emanates.

Like traditional public schools, charter schools include the good, the bad and the ugly.

Lansing policymakers are not creating opportunities for quality schools to bloom and are shutting the window, trapping far too many kids in failing schools. There ought to be a single quality measuring stick for all public education in Michigan.

A lousy school — one that is not educating children — is a lousy school and should not be able to operate, regardless of whether it is a traditional or charter.

The political left needs to stop supporting traditional schools failing our children, just as the political right must admit that simply calling a school a “charter” does not give it magical powers.

We need to stop using our schools and students to make ideological points and instead use them to prepare our children for their future.

Traditional schools, charter schools, blended and e-learning — all have a place in the educational framework so long as they are preparing students for the hyper-competitive, technological and knowledge-driven global economy.

Having traveled extensively in China over the years, let me assure you that its citizens are not slowing down while we indulge in ideological fights.

While we fix the flaws in the lucrative charter scam, we need to be equally cognizant that the status quo will not take us where we need to go. In spite of public schools’ past achievements, the current system is leaving far too many children behind.

It should not be a state default policy to cheat children out of the education they need and deserve so that entrepreneurial scoundrels can line their pockets.

Efforts under way to “fix” or help existing public schools are laudable, but more can and should be done for the students and their parents — not for the district, charter or the system. We need to ask: “What must we do to help teachers teach and help children learn?”

The focus must be on establishing quality screens — not to keep charter schools out, but to assure quality (both educationally and financially) is built into all educational opportunities for our children.

As the second decade of the 21st century knowledge economy unfolds, Michigan is going to be dependent at every level on bold leadership with the courage to cast off the anchors of the past and set sail to create a new future. We can no more afford to waste tax dollars on entrepreneurial rip-offs than we can afford to leave a single child behind. Change that produces progress is needed.

While much focus has been on Michigan’s “brain drain” — students receiving a college education and fleeing our state — the greater problem is those we fail to educate who are staying behind. We cannot build a strong city, region or state on such a faulty foundation.

So, Lansing policymakers, you have an opportunity for a “do-over.” Stop the ideological fights and place the focus on appropriate oversight and quality education, regardless of its source — for the sake of our children and our collective future.

When the Legislature returns, it must take its role seriously and the fix the loopholes and charter school educational potholes.

Tom Watkins served as Michigan’s state superintendent of schools from 2001-05 and helped create the first charter in Michigan and Florida. Contact Watkins at tdwatkins88@gmail.com; follow him on twitter at tdwatkins88.